The private shuttle champions could take from the stadium back to the complex had windows that started at the height of the tables inside and stretched over the entire vehicle, giving its occupants an unobstructed view of the nearby scenery and sky. The shuttle followed a route near the edge of the campus that rounded the training grounds and was lined with trees that Hand had planted to block out any potentially prying eyes who tried to climb over the wall or even set up on a nearby building to get a shot of the champions. Those trees provided a spectacular view during autumn when their leaves all began to change and splashed the interior of the shuttle with an assortment of gold, red, and orange light. Seeing this in combination with the cooler air and the increasingly cozy atmosphere at the complex helped many champions relax, but for Zelda, who was riding back from the stadium after watching a long day of matches with the sparkling reflections bouncing off her blond hair, she could only watch the deepening colors with concern.
She didn't fight today, but visiting the stadium every match day had become a frequent business trip of hers. Keeping track of stadium attendance in person wasn't strictly necessary, as official numbers would be posted before the matches were all over, but being on-site for anything Hand needed was a second job now. The time she usually would be spending training was becoming absorbed by planning for all the new events and projects they were trying out. The interviews were functioning mostly on their own, and with Mario and DK offering advice to the greener champions, everyone was giving stronger, more complete answers to the reporters. Doubles matches had brought out a die-hard group of fans that helped bump the numbers up, and the interlacing of singles and doubles matches was keeping things fresh.
But the overall numbers weren't going in the direction they needed. About a month ago, she had been content with their progress thus far, but with autumn setting in, the lack of any further developments was putting her on edge. They needed a turnaround, and the deeper they got into autumn, the bigger they needed to go.
She was so lost in her thoughts that when the shuttle came to a stop near the front of the complex she hadn't reacted to the doors opening until Ike had silently tapped her on the shoulder.
"Thanks," she mumbled.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Yeah. I'm just…distracted is all."
"Well, let someone know if you need something. We're all just as nervous about this, you know."
Zelda paused just after stepping off the shuttle and turned to look at the trees again. What she wouldn't give to have a few more weeks before they turned colors this year. Their bright palettes had done a number on her morale.
That's what she needed, time, but there wasn't a soul on this planet that could give her that. She thought longingly of some of the tools she and Link had at their disposal eons ago, tools that would have been able to reset the clock as many times as they needed until they concocted the ultimate strategy, but those were either long gone or completely out of reach. They were quite on their own in this world.
Outside of that, there wasn't much for anyone to do except continue trying to come up with ideas. The ones from the first brainstorming session had gone over alright with Hand. The alternate field was interesting, but out of the question since such modifications would take far too much time, and the board would balk at the costs when they were already in dire straits. The idea of an in-city appearance by some of the champions did sound well to him, and he had been working to obtain a spot at a convention center soon, but while this would provide a temporary boost, they both knew it would be an insignificant result in the long run. Once again, they found their ideas to be too short-lived and far too narrow in scope.
Still, she had enough leadership experience to understand that dragging anyone directly into her and Hand's detailed discussions would only cause more chaos at this point, and the result would be an even worse product than if was just them. It might seem to others like she's trying to either keep them out of the loop or be overly protective of them, but it was simply the optimal strategy for now.
She walked into the complex and began heading to her room. As she passed the dining room, she could hear Cap and his group trying to start something, probably some crazy drinking game or whatever. Then, they'd all get to see at the training grounds tomorrow who had gone beyond their limit. Even though this probably meant they'd be once again hearing a ton of noise tonight beneath their room, she wasn't going to bother trying to tell them off. Cap's theatrics had been the single greatest morale booster ever since the news began to come out, and he was great at keeping people's minds off things. Anyway, that whole group had been taking care not to get too wild late at night after she had reduced their room to a smoldering warzone.
Going up the stairs, she passed by Corra and October, who were both bolting down the stairs to get in on the partying. Corra was stumbling down the stairs as fast as she could while October was vaulting half a floor per step. "Sorry!" October shouted behind her when Zelda had to sidestep her trapezing.
When she entered the room, she was a little surprised to see all her roommates were still there. She gave a very half-hearted "Hey" to their welcomes. They exchanged looks but didn't bother her any when she moped past them to the shower.
Once the shower was running and she knew it would drown out most of the noise in the bathroom, she leaned over the sink and let out a huge sigh. In the mirror, she could see faint circles starting to form under her eyes. She wasn't sure if they had arisen from stress or lack of sleep, but they certainly hadn't been there before. It wasn't a surprise Ike had asked if she was alright when she looked like this.
"Damn this sucks," she grumbled, ripping off her shirt and throwing it into the wall with such force that the soft fabric had sent a thump reverberating into the living room.
"You okay in there?" Rosalina called.
"I'm fine," she returned flatly.
Midway through autumn, Fox boarded the shuttle to see perhaps the most champions he had ever seen onboard since Opening Day.
"Something going on?" he asked.
"You don't pay attention to other's schedules, do you?" grumbled Lucina. After their second doubles match, Fox and Lucina had resigned to at least consistently hanging around each other to build some kind of chemistry, but it had been painstaking for them both. Fox frequently forgot about Lucina's existence, given he was a lone operator when it came to training, leading to her donning a very sarcastic and unsympathetic attitude any time he made the slightest misstep. They still had a long way to go.
"Why would I keep track of that?" he responded exasperatedly. Any time he thought Lucina was being antagonistic he reacted defensively out of reflex. She had demonstrated having no remorse piling onto him every time she had the chance. He didn't push his luck too much, though. This was better than her outright ignoring him.
She didn't respond, instead giving him an eye roll and shoving her phone in his face. After taking a step back so he could read what was on the screen, he said, "So everyone wants to see Leaf. Hopefully, she's not put into a terrible match-up again…oh?"
The conversation picked up a little once the shuttle was on its way to the stadium. Anyone who was fighting that day would already be in the locker rooms. Fox didn't have another fight until he and Lucina squared off together in their next doubles match, having just recently defeated Samus last week. It had been a great bounce-back victory for him, but he couldn't help but notice Samus wasn't performing at her best. He didn't ask her about it, as such questions could easily be interpreted as gloating, and he was probably the only person in the whole arena that day who noticed something was off about her focus.
They all made straight for the club seating from the shuttle and filled over half the section. There was a great deal of muttering amongst them as the countdown to Leaf's fight drew closer and closer. As one of the newbie fights, she would be the first on the schedule today.
"Hey, have you seen this?" Link sat down next to Fox and handed his phone over to him.
"Seen what?" He took the phone and immediately recognized Leaf's face. She was mid-battle with Link on the training grounds. The article below was a glowing review of her character and attitude. At some point, the writer referred to her as a fiery marshmallow. Fox wasn't entirely convinced of the comparison, but it didn't take away from the fact this person had been totally enamored by Leaf. The way she wrote made her appear as some kind of upcoming talent rather than the newbie that had been shellacked in her first fight, and he was getting some intense underdog vibes from the way the writer was telling her story. Eventually, he found himself halfway through the article before Link finally pulled the phone away.
"I'll send you it if you're so interested," he said, "but what do you think?"
"I think you were getting your ass kicked in that photo," Fox jabbed.
"Oh come off it, I was doing a favor for Bowser…speaking of which…"
The conversation around them died when the thundering figure strolled into the club. Fox vaguely had the feeling some of them were expecting a speech, although he knew that was about as likely as Lucina complimenting him. Instead, he did something Fox had never seen him do before.
Bowser was far from quiet when it came to talking about his gambling. Overtly reactionary during every fight, he complained loudly when things didn't go his way, and boasted triumphantly when they did. They all knew the only reason Bowser took a keen interest in most fights was that he had put money on them. Still, he was very principled in his gambling, such to a point that Hand, who was never favorable to the idea of champions gambling on each other, had refrained from getting involved. One, he gambled the same amount of money each week. No more, no less. This value had remained consistent for longer than most champions had even lived at the complex. Two, no matter how badly things went for him, he never made a single mention of it to any of the involved champions. The results of his gambling had never once had an impact on how he interacted with anyone. This was something Hand had kept a particularly close eye on during the early days. Lastly, despite the fact everyone knew Bowser gambled every week, they never saw him do it in person. He never tried to make a statement out of it, and he always had his bets placed well in advance of arriving at the stadium. If he hadn't been such a loudmouth about it during the fights, no one would have ever known he did any gambling at all. He never tried to coerce someone into gambling, and it never got in the way of his interactions with others.
This last principle, if even for just one time, was being broken right before their eyes as Bowser brought up a holoscreen in front of his chair in plain view of everyone, placed his entire weekly allowance on Leaf, and submitted it.
Fox's jaw dropped, Link ran his hand through his hair with a nervous smile on his face and stared wide-eyed out onto the field. Some of the others even cheered. Bowser did not indicate that he heard or noticed any of them. He sat back in his chair, emotionless as he had been when Leaf was throttled her first fight, and awaited the start of the match.
"Well, this just got even more interesting," said Link, still staring outside.
"I don't want to be in the same building if this goes sideways," said Fox. "Bowser never gets mad at someone else for his bad bet, but he's wagering a lot more than just money here."
They waited for the huge countdown clock above the field to tick down to zero. With each second the crowd was getting more excited. Fox glanced over at Zelda, who he knew would have been noticing the same thing he was. The audience was a lot more energized today. Perhaps she knew what was going on. She had been so in tune with Hand's plans that he figured there was a constant one in motion that she was presiding over every time she showed up to the arena.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" the announcer thundered. "IT'S TIME FOR OUR FIRST FIGHT OF TODAY'S SINGLES MATCHES! I GIVE YOU…LEAF…VERSUS…INCINEROAR!"
"It sounds way louder out there than usual," noted Robin from behind Fox and Link. Fox looked again at Zelda. She was alert; not exactly the face of someone who was expecting the crowd's extra energy today.
"Hey! Cap! You're not backing your boy against Leaf, are you? Who sides against a fiery marshmallow?" hollered Daisy.
The Captain turned around smoothly from his seat in the center of the front row and said, "If you think Leaf needs our pity, you haven't been paying attention."
Daisy plopped back down. Some of the others laughed. Even Bowser gave a little snort.
"You seem confident," Fox dared to ask.
"I simply made an educated bet," Bowser replied.
"Uh huh…"
"THREE!"
"And if it doesn't go well?"
"TWO!"
"Didn't you know, Fox?"
"ONE!"
"I'm a prolific gambler."
"FIGHT!"
Incineroar wasted no time closing the gap between himself and the little Squirtle. He lunged for it. Squirtle hopped backward and retreated into its shell. It fired at Incineroar, who had moved back slightly after failing to grab it. Incineroar sidestepped the shell, and Squirtle popped back out at the center of the stage.
Bowser gave a tiny fist pump. Fox could tell why. Leaf had quickly taken control of the center of the stage after Incineroar had tried to move into it early on. Now she had Incineroar's back facing the nearest edge.
Incineroar, no longer the fool who once accepted Zelda's one-on-one challenge, recognized this. He tried to push back into the middle. Leaf swapped out Squirtle for Ivysaur. Its long vines lashed out at Incineroar, blocking him from retaking the middle of the stage. Each attempt was met with a hard whip across the side, back, chest, and face. Incineroar knew he wasn't getting anywhere soon, and switched tactics. Whenever Ivysaur tried to shove him away, he stood his ground and willingly took the hit. It resulted in him taking a beating, but he was making steady progress across the stage.
"I remember hearing about this," said Fox. "Doesn't he have some kind of wild counter ability that gets stronger the more you beat him up?"
Leaf was already a step ahead. She switched back to Squirtle and used its water gun to shove Incineroar backward until he was digging his claws in at the edge of the stage. Minimal damage to not strengthen his counter ability, but a lot of push-back. All his progress had been erased.
Frustrated, Incineroar went back to a more aggressive style. He went over the thin floating platforms and landed on one directly above Squirtle, who Leaf switched out for Charizard. Incineroar didn't have long. Charizard was big enough to start taking swipes from below. He dropped off the platform and straight on top of Charizard, who was all too happy to wind up its tail to pummel him.
"No, wait!" Leaf cried out, but Charizard had already swung. Incineroar took the hit like a champ, then grabbed Charizard and, with far more power than Fox or anyone else up in the club had ever realized was possible with him, launched him backward with such force that Charizard passed the out-of-bounds marker on the side of the arena, long before falling to the bottom.
"Whoa!" Link shouted, standing up.
Fox looked over to Bowser. A stroke of his chin was the only emotion he gave away. Fair enough, Fox thought. It was still very early, and Incineroar had taken such a beating that Charizard would be making quick work of him in a few seconds.
Cap, Falco, and Sonic had broken out into triumphant roars, much to everyone else's dissatisfaction, but they were drowned out by one of the strangest things they, including the Big Eight, had ever heard come from outside.
"Are they…booing?" Lucina asked.
The raucous trio went silent, and the unmistakable drone of unhappy, booing fans rumbled into their contained box amongst the stands. They looked around the arena and could see fans getting out of their seats to shout at the fighters on stage or even give them a few choice gestures.
Vexed, Fox instinctively looked to Zelda and was alarmed to see she had gone pale.
"What's going on?" he asked sharply.
"I-I…I don't know." She was just as lost as the rest of them.
In a single moment, confusion had turned to nervousness, and nervousness had then turned to panic. Anyone who hadn't been living under a rock for the past few months knew a catastrophic falling out of fan opinion would be the end times for them. The frantic chattering was rising.
"Calm down, all of you." Bowser boomed. His voice had blown away the sound of booing, if only for a moment. "Stop assuming things you know nothing about."
Fox knew Bowser was just as unaware of what was going on as the rest of them, but sometimes his cold logic was what was needed to settle things down. There was zero indication that the crowd's reaction was related to what they thought of the competition entirely. It didn't make sense, given the fans had been plenty happy as of yesterday. They returned to a nervy silence and resumed watching the fight unfold below, pretending as if the booing wasn't still poking its way through.
Incineroar and Leaf had noticed. Incineroar was glancing around with uncertainty as he awaited Charizard's return, and Leaf's eyes had lost their intense focus for a moment. They didn't have the luxury of fretting, though. With a shake of their heads, they began fighting once more.
Leaf kept Charizard on the field. It was an easy decision. With Incineroar severely banged up, Charizard maintained a huge physical advantage. Incineroar tried his counter strategy again, allowing himself to be beaten up beyond his limits, but when the time came to counter, he had been so incapacitated that it was a sloppy one. Charizard dodged it, and he landed a heavy blow to Incineroar's gut, sending him off the stage. For a good measure, knowing Incineroar could make impressive recoveries at times, Charizard flew off the stage and gave him another smack on the head to send him careening out of bounds below. Cap and his crew groaned with pain, while everyone else celebrated, but their reactions were once again drowned by the crowd noise outside.
Except for this time, it wasn't booing.
The entire arena exploded into wild cheering when Charizard landed his final hit on Incineroar. Entire sections of fans jumped with their hands in the air. Bits of popcorn and beer was flying all over the place. The atmosphere had done a one-eighty to sound like a warrior tribe celebrating victory.
"Okay," said Link, throwing his hands out as if begging for life itself to pause, "what is happening?"
The mood in the club, which had been so anxious not ten seconds ago, had swung back into total confusion. Fans typically got excited whenever any champion was tossed off the field, but the pandemonium that had just erupted was beyond any of that. They all looked like they had won a lottery.
"What is this all about?" asked Palutena. "Zelda?" she added, looking at her roommate.
Zelda sounded like her voice box had been removed. "I…I don't…?"
Fox once again looked to Bowser, who had attained a look of wild curiosity in his eyes. "Do you have any clue?" he asked.
Bowser moved his hand from his chin to scratch his face and revealed a thin, barely visible, disbelieving smile. "Surely they're not…" he mumbled. He sounded like he was about to start laughing.
"Not what?" Fox asked desperately.
Back on the field, the fighters were perplexed, but they were thrown back into battle right away. Leaf had managed to keep her head screwed on better than Incineroar during the confusion, and she took advantage of her distracted opponent to get him pinned into the corner of the stage again. This time, when Incineroar tried to sacrifice himself and counter Charizard, the now wiser Pokémon artfully dodged it and punished him with yet another clobbering with its tail. Incineroar was caught off balance and sent out of bounds.
There was no cheering from anyone in the club this time. When Incineroar was launched, they waited to hear the crowd's reaction. When he hit the out-of-bounds line, they erupted into celebratory cheers once more.
"Are they…?" started Link.
"Cheering for Leaf?" Fox finished in astonishment.
Bowser exploded into his iconic maniacal laughter, and the room was consumed with all kinds of reactions and speculation. Something like this had never happened before. Sure, crowds might pick a favorite during a match if a champion was making a huge comeback, or they were putting on a particularly impressive or iconic performance, but never had they come into a day of matches with predetermined opinions on supporting one champion over another. Such favoritism had been antithetical to what Hand had wanted to build with this competition, which was a friendly, unbiased sport where fans cheer for the competition as a whole, rather than any individual champion.
But here they were, clearly celebrating whenever Leaf and her Pokémon knocked Incineroar off and booing when Incineroar knocked them off. Sure enough, when a refreshed Incineroar returned to the stage with his final stock of the set, now understanding what was going on, and knocked the swapped-in Ivysaur off to tie things up once more, the crowd let him know their discontent.
Zelda, to Fox's relief, had regained all the color in her face, and her eyes were now darting all over the place, analyzing every little detail she could. As Leaf battled Incineroar on their last legs of the set, the crowd began to cheer and boo every individual punch, block, sidestep, and counter.
And it was infectious. The energy was flooding into the club box now, and all the champions there who still weren't stunned were shouting and screaming at every little thing. Cap and the crew were positively indignant that the entire crowd was being hostile to their roommate, and were equaling everyone else with their roars. The rest were stamping their feet and jumping around in their seats, sometimes even out of them. Corra was leaning over the back of Simon's seat, banging the back of it with her hand. Red had left his seat completely, trying to shout his own instructions in real time as if Leaf or their Pokémon would ever be able to hear them. Marth, Chrom, and even Wolf of all people were sitting at the absolute edge of their seats, their hands balled up into fists as they leaned in several directions with each near miss Leaf endured.
Incineroar managed to land another hard counter against Ivysaur, but just as the crowd was beginning to boo the apparent loss of Leaf's last stock, it launched a vine out and barely grabbed onto the edge of the stage. Incineroar moved to knock it off, but Leaf had already switched back to Charizard so it could fly back up. She was having to scream out her instructions to get over the cheering crowd noise now, and her face was turning red doing so. Incineroar, fueled by the hostile crowd, was becoming nigh invincible on the number of hits he was willing to take.
"Just one good hit, c'mon!" Red shouted.
"Don't let them break you! Finish this out!" Falco bellowed.
"GET BACK! GET BACK!" Corra was about to break the back of Simon's chair.
Ivysaur had come back out, and it grabbed Incineroar with its vines and tossed him across the stage. Incineroar slipped off the whole platform and latched onto the edge with his claws. Ivysaur was replaced with Squirtle, which barreled down towards the dangling Incineroar in its shell. Incineroar heaved himself upwards and launched over Squirtle's attack. Squirtle turned around just as Incineroar wound up a furious kick at the edge of the stage.
Fox swore he could hear the entire stadium collectively scream "WATCH OUT!" Squirtle barely missed the worst of the kick. It clipped its shell and pushed it off the stage. Incineroar vaulted off the stage to complete his kill, but Leaf had her wits about her. Squirtle hadn't even fallen below the stage before she was switching it out for Charizard. Incineroar was left hapless in the air above the now much larger Pokémon, which rocketed upwards in a collision that did what few other attacks here ever did. It sent Incineroar so high up that he touched the out-of-bounds line above the stage and lost his final stock.
Insanity gripped the stadium. The crowd was in such a craze they could feel their jumping and pounding vibrating their seats. The club box might as well have not had walls with how loud it was both outside and inside. Half the champions had launched out of their chairs. Pikachu was doing some strange macho-looking flex while shouting "PIKAAAAA!" Corra had finally given Simon's chair some mercy so she could hop over the back of hers and start dancing around. Palutena spun around in her chair to face a distraught Falco and shouted, "HA!" Bowser's insane laughter had never stopped, and it had compounded with Leaf's first set win.
Leaf was punching the air furiously and roaring back at the crowd. Each scream elicited a further shot of energy from the stadium. It was becoming a powerful feedback loop. Fox couldn't remember the last time someone had demonstrated such a furious amount of passion over winning a single set. One would think she had just taken down a member of the Big Eight with how she and everyone else was reacting.
But she wasn't the only one feeding off it. Incineroar had just been patched up in anticipation of the second set, and he looked devilish. Playing the antagonist was perfectly acceptable to him, and he was raring to go.
"THE SECOND SET IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!" the announcer cried. He was struggling to be heard over this crowd. "LEAF LEADS ONE TO NIL! LET'S BEGIN! THREE! TWO! ONE! FIGHT!"
This time, half the people in the club were starting the fight already out of their seats. Fox noticed Zelda had just left, going to talk to Hand presumably upstairs to see what was going on. He might have gone with her to help out, but this fight was sucking him in like none before.
Incineroar was playing his counter ability much smarter this time around. He kept Leaf guessing with a combination of attacks and feints into counters which made her have to consider whether each attack would land or just make him more threatening. The switch-up paid off quickly. Incineroar had countered an unprepared Squirtle and catapulted it out of bounds.
When the booing resumed, Incineroar wasted no time turning to the crowd and strutting before it, his mischievous smile beaming at them. This provoked an even stronger response, and the place was getting so excited Fox wondered if it was going to start generating electricity.
Leaf and Incineroar once again battled to a final stand. Champions were pounding the glass in favor of Leaf. Falco and Sonic were doing all kinds of weird flexes and bellowing to back Incineroar. The insanity reached a fever pitch as the final stock for each fighter dragged out on and on and on until finally Incineroar tripped up a lumbering Charizard, slammed it into the ground, and then dumped it off the side of the stage for the set victory. Cap and his crew exploded and everyone else groaned. Incineroar began parading across the whole stage as the crowd's distaste poured onto him. Leaf stamped her foot, but regained her composure.
"That's right, keep your head on straight," said Bowser. "It's just one set, nothing lost yet."
But during the second set, things began to go downhill for Leaf. Incineroar's mixed use of his countering and feinting was causing Leaf all kinds of trouble. This time, Incineroar comfortably navigated everything she could throw at him, and he tossed Squirtle off the stage and followed up with a deep, daring mid-air challenge that he could afford since he was up an extra stock on her. He won the third set with a comfortable three-to-one score and was now one set away from clinching victory.
The crowd began to feel it as well. The booing was still there, but it wasn't as intense as it had been when Incineroar had won his first set. The champions were becoming somber as well (aside from a particular group of three). The momentum was heavily in Incineroar's favor.
"Still not over," Fox heard Bowser mumble. "C'mon, what's your strategy now that your back is against the wall?"
As Fox had expected, Leaf started the fourth set playing very conservatively. Some call it patience, others call it playing scared. It all came down to personal style. Incineroar, of course, had become much more aggressive. This was a very common look in any fourth round where someone could afford to play overly risky.
But Leaf's conservatism seemed to have a strategy and a point. She had lost because Incineroar was playing patient and smart with her, feinting and biding his time until the perfect opportunity arose. Now, she was playing even more patiently than him, forcing him to adopt an even slower style to keep up his strategy from the previous two sets.
And Incineroar did not like being patient. He began lashing out at every weakness Leaf presented, and there were a handful of close calls where Leaf had to shout out an instruction or alert to barely avoid being dealt a crushing hit. With each missed opportunity, Incineroar was being punished brutally.
There's a moment in these fights that Fox is all too familiar with, when someone has built a comfortable lead, and all they need to do is just follow their fundamentals and close things out. It's a rather boring style of play, but it guarantees results. Stay calm while you squeeze the life out of your opponent's will to fight. However, when such a lead has been built, there comes a curse. It lurks, dormant until a particular event brings it roaring to life, completely changing the feeling of the match.
The expectation to finish.
It came when Incineroar had a golden opportunity to take one of Leaf's stocks after she had been overly cautious and left herself boxed into a corner on the edge of the stage. Incineroar missed an easy grab, and Squirtle took advantage of the blunder to knock him off stage and blast him with a jet of water to prevent any possible recovery. Leaf now had a huge two-to-zero lead in this set.
And just like that, despite Incineroar's lead feeling so daunting just ten seconds ago, despite Incineroar still technically having the lead, the resuscitation of the crowd, which had begun to die down going into this set, was so violent that anyone who walked into the arena right now would assume Leaf was on the verge of winning.
Fox glanced at Bowser, who had the glint in his eye that he expected. Any veteran knew what had just happened. The pressure on Incineroar had just quadrupled. He had gone from carefree winner to teetering at the precipice of his narrow lead in the blink of an eye.
Incineroar was now desperate to put this fight away. He began fighting a daunting uphill battle. Even if he didn't have the veteran wherewithal required for knowing just how dire of a situation he was now in, he could feel that letting Leaf win this fourth set was as good as handing the match to her.
Leaf kept her composure. Incineroar lunged time and time again, and the set looked much more like the first instead of the second and third. She exploited his weakness with expert handling and had Ivysaur grab him and vault his battered corpse out of bounds with two lives to spare.
The crowd was back, louder than before, as were the champions. It had come down to the final set. Leaf let out a few well-deserved roars and reset herself. Incineroar arrived on stage, laser-focused on what he needed to do.
But it was for naught. Leaf was transcending her capabilities before their eyes. At multiple points, she issued daring commands that demonstrated exquisite knowledge of her Pokémons' limits and capabilities. Incineroar grew more erratic the tighter the match got. They went blow for blow, Leaf maintaining a thin lead the entire set.
At the climax, Incineroar went high in the air to perform an all-out divebomb attack. Fox immediately recognized this as the one he had attempted against Zelda.
So had Leaf.
"SIDESTEP, CHARIZARD!" she screamed over the crowd. "AND HIT HIM WITH YOUR TAIL!"
Charizard sidestepped. Incineroar crashed into the ground with a meaty crunch. He tried to back out from his position, but Charizard was already mid-swing and it caught him square in the gut.
In the last few seconds, as Incineroar's disgraced body was sent airborne, time slowed down for Fox. He could see Charizard's exhausted grin when it felt its hit connect perfectly. Leaf was already winding up for the biggest air punch she could deliver, her eyes wide with shock and excitement. Captain, Falcon, and Sonic were sliding down the glass miserably, and everyone was piling on them to cheer at the windows. The crowd was coming unglued from their seats, waving every part of their body in elation. He could almost see the waves of energy crashing and rebounding off of every surface. To his side, Bowser had stood out of his chair when Incineroar had been set flying, his arms up in the air and screaming "YES!"
He couldn't figure out how, or what exactly had started or ended up causing what had happened. There was no explanation he could give for why everyone had this feeling, but it was as undeniable as Leaf's first-ever victory once Incineroar flew past the out-of-bounds boundary.
They were having fun.
Zelda threw open the door to the press box and marched in.
Hand and Kaitlin were standing next to each other behind a row of radio callers and reporters.
"You really need to start asking for permission before you barge in here," Hand scolded her.
"Oh come on, you know why I had to come up here, what the heck is going on?"
"That's not a good enough reason…"
Down below, Leaf and Incineroar were going to their fifth and final set after Leaf had held off two match points. The buzz around the stadium was undeniable.
"Something is different about this match," Zelda continued. "What's with the crowd?"
"We were just talking about that," said Kaitlin, looking at Hand. "It looks like you've got yourselves a fan favorite out there."
"Yeah, but why? Sure everyone at the complex loves Leaf, and Incineroar can be…a handful…but the crowd doesn't know any of that."
"Well, they do a little bit now, at least when it comes to Leaf. Did you see that article about her that just came out?"
Zelda remembered it was the one Link had been showing Fox in the club box earlier. She had glanced at it but lost interest. It was far too…extracurricular for her tastes. The writer seemed to care more about Leaf's personality and fashion choices than her fighting ability.
"That was from when Hand let a handful of you guys onto the training grounds to interview a few of them, right?"
"Yep. The one, or I should say ones, that wrote that article are from a much different audience. They typically write about celebrities, superstars, fashion, stuff I could never get into."
"Same," added Zelda.
"But they took a real liking to Leaf. Apparently, they checked in on her after we had done the official tour and asked her even more questions. Before long they had a whole profile cooked up for her. They're not a small publication either. I checked them out after I got back to the office. Those two can make or break careers in the socialite class." She turned onto Hand. "And you knew that. I wondered why you invited them."
Hand looked a little caught off guard. "Lucky guess," he said.
"Come off that. The only reason you invited anyone outside a major sports publication was because you knew something about them."
Zelda looked up at Hand. Did he really plan that far ahead? She had only been thinking as far as what the extra exposure would do for generating interest in the competition. Had he picked reporters based on what specialties and audiences they had in their writing?
"Regardless," he said, "the numbers have been looking good so far."
"More than good," Kaitlin scoffed, "you hit gold with this. Now my boss is going to be asking when I'll have an article on Leaf for her to run." She sighed. "Especially if she closes out this match."
Incineroar had just tossed Ivysaur off the stage to send the fifth set down to the final life for each fighter. He gave the crowd a few flaunts. The radio callers nearby were getting rather involved.
"How big of a boost do you think this will give us?" Zelda asked. She had been longing for a breakthrough, and this was beginning to sound like one.
"Going into the next fights and next week? None," said Kaitlin. Zelda felt like she had just been punched in the stomach. "But the next time Leaf plays? It'll probably be right back to this. Can you guess why?"
Zelda shook her head.
"Because the audience is invested in Leaf now," said Hand.
Kaitlin pointed her pen at Hand. "Winner. Whatever those girls wrote, it resonated big time with regular people. They're cheering for her like she's their best friend, or even better, themselves."
Charizard launched upwards from a dicey situation right under the edge of the stage to blast Incineroar sky-high until he hit the out-of-bounds line above the stage. The crowd below came unglued.
"So, what? We just get those two to write a story about every champion?" asked Zelda.
Kaitlin laughed. "Good luck with that. They're bound to be incredibly busy. A lot about reporting is being quick, and in their particular niche, if you're not first, you're last."
"What's more important is that we have a far clearer strategy going forward," said Hand. "Figure out how to get the crowd more invested in the champions. Anyway, I'll be able to put some board minds at ease with these numbers. It'll buy us some time."
Zelda balled up her fists at her chest. That's exactly what they needed.
"Speaking of those interviews," added Hand. Where's your article? I figured you would've wanted to be first out the door with that."
Kaitlin smirked. "I've got something else cooked up."
"Somehow, that doesn't put my mind at ease."